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The winters here are not good for Marcus' leg. Esca lies awake sometimes and wonders if Marcus should go back to Rome, to the softer winters that Marcus tells him about. He can't imagine it, a winter without snow or heavy rain, a winter where even the darkness is lessened. Marcus says even flowers bloom in the winter where he was born.
Esca tries to picture it. The snow, when it falls, doesn't stick, Marcus says. He remembers one great snowfall, when he was a child, and trampling through it in his thin sandals with his mother to the temple, where they made their offerings shivering in their tunics and cloaks. He's always cold here, all the time, although he says he's hardened to it now.
Esca wonders if he would get used to the heat, to the softness of a place where frost scarcely touches the ground from year to year's-end.
He would do it. Perhaps it wouldn't be so strange after a while. But perhaps Marcus would be shamed by him, by the tattoos they regard as barbaric and the accent that Marcus sometimes smiles at, when Esca speaks Latin. Marcus says he's used to it now, sometimes has a moment of surprise when he hears a Roman accent again.
It consoles Esca, a little, to know that Marcus's accent when he speaks Esca's own language, is even worse, though he tries harder than Esca does. He trips and slurs over the words and Esca puts his hand over his mouth.
"Laugh all you want," says Marcus, with a half smile curving his mouth.
"Pardon, domine," says Esca, looking as sober as he can manage.
--
When Esca wakes up, three nights before solstice, Marcus is crouched unsteadily by the fire, feeding it a lump of wood. "Marcus," he says softly, "Marcus, you should have woken me instead."
From the hearth, Cub whines, as if he thinks Marcus is foolish too. He doesn't try to nudge Marcus, thanks be, but Marcus sways as he gets to his feet and Esca bites his lip instead of offering him help Marcus would be too proud to accept.
"I'm fine," says Marcus, as quietly as Esca. He sets his foot down carefully on his bad side, winces, and puts his weight on the other instead. "It doesn't hurt, truly." Esca's lips thin as he watches Marcus hobble carefully back to the bed. "If you don't stop getting up at night it will get worse," he says. "The cold air --"
"I'm all right," says Marcus, more sharply than perhaps he intended, with the pain of the cold in his leg, aggravated by kneeling beside the hearth fraying at his temper. "I'm not a child, and I'll thank you --"
"Marcus," says Esca, and Marcus deflates completely.
"It does ache, a little," he admits, low, as if confessing a fault. "I shouldn't waste the fuel, but --"
"Come to bed," says Esca, pushing the covers aside. The room is cold and smells like smoke and snow. Esca shivers. No wonder Marcus's leg hurts, if more snow is coming. He gets up and finds the ointment he compounded for their horses, and Marcus when his pride allows it. Marcus sits down, and winces his way to swinging his leg up in the bed. "I pray the solstice comes soon," he says.
"Truly," says Esca, coming back and sitting beside him, "it is in my heart to tell you a comforting falsehood."
"Tell me what the falsehood is, so I may decide if it is comforting," says Marcus, as Esca pushes his tunic up over his leg. The knotted scar tissue of his leg is swollen and a little red, and Esca hisses in sympathy.
"I would tell you that the winter loses it's grip on the world after solstice," says Esca solemnly. He takes a fingertip's worth of the ointment and warms it between his hands.
Marcus half-laughs, half-groans, says, "I rue the day I left Egypt," and hisses as Esca begins to rub the warmed ointment on his thigh.
"Is it very warm there?" says Esca, less out of interest, and more to distract Marcus. Esca doesn't know how he feels about Marcus's stories of the places he's been. Esca knows that he will never see the places Marcus speaks of. Once he might have regretted this but -- now he is content here, with Marcus and their horses.
"Oh, very, very," says Marcus, relaxing a little as the ointment begins to work. "Every day is like a summer day here. We sweated like pigs in our armor, and the sergeants screamed at us for rusting them from within."
"I would not like it," says Esca, decidedly.
"You would like Spain," says Marcus, a little dreamily. "It's not so hot there, and the vineyards --"
Esca tries not to press down viciously at the mention of Marcus's vineyards, and mostly succeeds. "The horses would eat your grapes," he says.
"They would grow fat on them," agrees Marcus. He yawns. "There would be enough, though. For them and for us and perhaps a little to sell."
Esca hums beneath his breath, rubs at a knot of pain beneath Marcus's skin. Marcus shifts a little, not quite flinching as Esca works at the cramping muscle. "Do you miss it so, then?"
"Sometimes," says Marcus, surprising him. "But not so badly, not any more. Not as badly as --"
As Esca must miss his own home. Esca does, sometimes bitterly, looking to the north, as if he can see past the hateful Wall and to the lands where he was born and ran wild with his brothers. But they won't come back for his grief or his longing, and he -- he has settled here. It's not so bad, now.
"But would you go?" says Esca. He's not even pretending to massage Marcus's leg now, his hands lying on Marcus's hard thigh without moving. Esca likes it here. Esca will go where Marcus goes, but Esca likes it here.
"Not without you," says Marcus, direct as always, and Esca lowers his eyes to hide a smile.